Reparation

A Reparation is a payment made to repair a breach or injustice. Sometimes the word indemnity is used.

In the international sphere, reparations have been demanded at times of the nations who have lost a war to the nations who won, for damages caused by the nations who lost.

Large reparations have sometimes caused extensive economic damage to the countries that have to pay them: for example, after the First World War the Treaty of Versailles obliged Germany to pay enormous reparations to France and the other allied nations. This compounded the already heavy costs associated with the war itself and thereby contributed significantly to the rampant inflation that afflicted the country during the 1920s and 1930s, and by extension National Socialism taking Germany over.^{[Citation Needed]}

By contrast, the United States has often treated vanquished nations with magnanimity, paying billions to rebuild a wartorn former foe. The Marshall Plan and Dawes Plan are only two examples.

Nazi Germany reparations

The German government has provided life-long pensions to people imprisoned during the Holocaust.

Reparations for US internment of Japanese-Americans

The US Federal Government paid $20,000 payments to 82,210 Japanese Americans or their heirs, department officials said yesterday. Under a federal court settlement, the balance of the $1.6 billion fund was left over to make $5,000 payments to Latin American Japanese.^[1]

Reparations for "Comfort Women" held by Japan during World War II

During World War II, Japan enslaved Korean women and children and forced them to serve as "comfort women" for the Japanese military. In 2015, Japan and South Korea entered into a bilateral agreement to “finally and irreversibly” resolve of the resulting claims. Japan promised reparations to the survivors.^[2]

Reparations to Mainland Chinese Nationalists exiled to Taiwan

Questions of reparations is one of many barriers to the reunification of mainland China and Taiwan.

In 2019 Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey introduced a bill in the Senate for the U.S. Treasury to pay slave reparations for the Democratic party's slave power. Yahoo Finance estimates the cost at $17.1 Trillion, or more than 90% of GDP. More than 90% of GDP is more than 90% of everything that a typical individual produces and consumes in the United States annually.^[3]

Sen. Elizabeth Warren has proposed legislation requiring the U.S. Treasury to pay same sex marriage reparations.